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My opinion
I think the AFL will laugh at any request for priority picks. Every team who has received assistance in the last decade has done so after being completely useless for multiple years. We haven’t been. I don’t think the fact we haven’t won a final in 20 years matters either.
However, I do think the AFL is starting to realise they’ve stuffed up with equalisation. North is taking forever. WCE looks like it might as well. Both didn’t trade out lots of players and arguably did what the AFL wants in a rebuild. And its failed. Or failed to be timely. The extra picks for top 5 teams with picks pushed back is the AFL edging around into giving more assistance while trying to avoid admitting they stuffed up. And they would have to realise that a team starting a rebuild as Tassie comes in is in a bad spot. They don’t want 4-5 basket cases at the bottom of the ladder.
So, I would put in a request to do two things. (1) set the ground for the future when we will request priority picks. And (2) try and get some “soft” support. I’d be emphasising the bad position we’re in with Tassie coming in, how much our picks in recent years have been pushed back by other teams’ academy/father-son picks, our record without winning a final, and that we’ve done the AFL approved thing of trying not to rebuild - and this is where its led us.
The two things I’d be aiming to try and get is higher discounts or early access to our father-son and academy players, and more list spots. Possibly a waiver of the tax on coaching as well, as damn we’ll need more development coaching.
The big one for us is the academy & F/S picks. Getting an extra 10%-20% discount on matching would be HUGE for our ability to get some extra quality in across the next 2-3 years, and it isn’t as obvious to the average punter that the AFL has given that support. So, it possibly won’t cause outrage and they can kind of sneak us the support. Like maybe they did with McKay and Allen’s priority pick bands for North and WCE. There is also the argument it is just neutralising for our picks being pushed back the last few years (albeit, we got Kako).